American Indian Women’s Activism
in the 1960s and 1970s
DONNA HIGHTOWER LANGSTON
This article will focus on the role of women in three red power events: the occupation
of Alcatraz Island, the Fish-in movement, and the occupation at Wounded Knee.
Men held most public roles at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, even though women
were the numerical majority at Wounded Knee. Female elders played a significant
role at Wounded Knee, where the occupation was originally their idea. In contrast to
these two occupations, the public leaders of the Fish-in movement were women—not
an untraditional role for women of Northwest Coastal tribes.
Introduction
American Indian political activism in the 1960s took place during a time when
many groups were actively organizing, groups with branches of their movement
dedicated to civil rights pursuits and branches of more radical Power groups.
Among civil rights groups of the time were African American organizations
such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership conference (SCLC), led by
Martin Luther King, and women’s groups like the National Organization for
Women (NOW). Civil rights groups most often focused on lobbying, education,
and creating legal change. Power groups responded to the limits of civil rights
groups with more radical rhetoric and actions. Numerous Power groups advocated Black Power, Brown Power, Red Power, and Radical Feminism—groups
such as the Black Panthers, Brown Berets, American Indian Movement (AIM),
and New York Radical Feminists.
Many groups borrowed strategies, tactics, theory, and vision from the African American movement. While similarities in goals and tactics can be found
Hypatia vol. 18, no. 2 (Spring 2003) © by Donna Hightower Langston
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among groups of this time period, American Indian groups differed from others
in a number of key areas, and also drew on their own unique history of continued resistance and conflict over land and resources (Baylor 1994, 33). One
major difference was that their focus was less on integration with dominant
society, and more on maintaining cultural integrity. While African Americans
had been denied integration, American Indians had faced a history of forced
assimilation (Winfrey 1986, 145). American Indians also faced problems that
differed from other groups, since they were owners of land and resources. A
central focus of their activism was on gaining enforcement of treaty rights,
not civil rights (Winfrey 1986, 146). The Indian movement focused more on
empowering the tribe, not individuals, the more common reference point for
civil rights groups.
At a time when white student groups advised against trusting anyone over 30,
American Indian youth actively pursued bonds with their elders and looked to
them for cultural knowledge and leadership (Ziegelman 1985, 4). While elders
had a revered status, they did not necessarily hold positions of tribal authority.
Many tribal councils were governed by members of a middle generation who
had survived boarding school, but did not always understand the traditional
values of elders or the interest among youth in reconnecting to their heritage
(Ziegelman 1985,13). Divisions also existed among Indians based on geographical residence; reservation or urban. The status of Indians on reservations was
sometimes compared to that of Southern Blacks, while members of urban diasporas were more often attracted to the rhetoric of power groups.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), founded in 1944,
was one of the prominent Civil Rights groups of the American Indian movement during this time period (Baylor 1994, 41). Unlike earlier groups, NCAI
membnership was restricted to people with Indian ancestry (Hertzberg 1971,
290), and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employees were barred from leadership
positions (Baylor 1994, 44; Hertzberg 1971, 290). Ruth Bronson (Cherokee) was
the first executive secretary of the NCAI and served in this position until 1956
(Bernstein 1984, 15). In general, the NCAI worked on issues more pertinent to
reservation Indians than urban communities (Johnson 1994, 13). NCAI campaigns included voting rights in the Southwest where Indians were prohibited
from voting in state and local elections (Johnson 1996, 54). Among the lobbying victories of this time period were the 1965 Indian Self-Determination and
Education Act, the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, the 1972 Indian Education
Act, the 1975 Indian Education Assistance and Self-Determination Act, the
1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, and the 1978 Religious Freedom Act.
Another primary issue the NCAI lobbied against was the 1953 Termination
Act passed by Congress and singed by President Eisenhower for the express
purpose of dissolving the legal status of all tribes. In a 1947 report by William
Zimmerman, the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, tribes were divided
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into categories of immediate or eventual termination (Winfrey 1986, 86). The
process began with the termination of the Paiutes of Utah in 1954 (Sinclair
1996, 41). Tribes were refused building permits for hospitals and schools since
this might encourage some to remain on their land rather than relocate (Burnett
1972, 567). Congress would only consider compensation for stolen land and
resources to those tribes who were willing to develop a termination plan (Olson
1984, 158). The termination policy occurred in a time period of widespread fear
that American values were under threat from outside the country and from
within (Sinclair 1996, 89). Indians who had not assimilated into dominant
culture were viewed as un-American by some. In 1960, Dillon Meyer, who had
directed the Japanese-American relocation campus during World War II, was
named Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Burnett 1972, 567).
One part of the Termination policy was the Relocation Program begun in
1952. This program offered one-way bus fare and the promise of assistance in
finding jobs and housing in urban areas for reservation Indians, usually younger
tribal members with more employable skills (Baylor 1994, 63; Ziegelman 1985,
16). In 1940, 13 percent of Indians lived in urban areas, but by 1980 more than
half were urban (Olson 1984, 163). The BIA estimated that 200,000 Indians
were relocated under this program, while the Indian Removal Act of 1830 had
forced less than half this number, 89,000, to relocate (Winton 1999, 9) The
high point of termination policy occurred during the period from 1952 to 1962
(Winfrey 1986, 88). With the election of Kennedy and democratic administrations, the government’s termination policy went into remission (Winfrey 1986,
96). By the late 1960s, both Johnson and Nixon had renounced termination.
It was formally overturned in 1972, twenty years after it had been initiated. A
renewed interest in tribal values was the exact opposite of what the Relocation
Program was supposed to achieve. Both African-American and Indian militancy
had increased with migration to urban areas. The growth in urban Indian populations unwittingly set the stage for a renewed radicalism among youth.
In the African-American movement, a younger group of students, disllusioned with the limits of civil rights approaches, branched off of the older
SCLC to form the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
This type of split also occurred in the American Indian Civil Rights movement, as students formed their own organization separate from the NCAI. The
National Indian Youth council (NIYC) was founded in 1961 after an NCAI
conference in Chicago during which disputes between Oklahoma and Great
Plains tribes and disputes between tribal leaders who dominated NCAI and
younger urban Indians occurred (Johnson 1994, 13). After the Chicago meeting, a group gathered in Gallup, New Mexico, to form NIYC (Olson 1984, 158).
Shirley Hill Witt (Iroquois) was one of the founders (Sayer 1997, 202). While
the NCAI had held conventions in big cities, NIYC began to hold meetings
on reservations. Every Youth council meeting included traditional tribal songs
and drum ceremonies (Price 1998, 89).
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The group employed non-violent, humorous, and symbolic ridicule of white
society through their publication ABC, Americans Before Columbus (Churchill
1990, 118). Perhaps influenced by Third World Liberation movements of the
time, they perceived the status of reservations to be that of internal colonies
under the rule of the BIA (Alvin 1971, 486). NIYC supported African-American
groups and borrowed many of their ideas and rhetoric (Winfrey 1986, 237). One
of the founders of NIYC, Clyde Warrior (Cherokee) spent the summer of 1961
working with SNCC voter education projects. He was one of the first Indian
activists to use revolutionary rhetoric and publicly labeled the BIA as a white
colonialist institution (Day 1971, 513). The term Red Power was first used by
Vine Deloria, Jr. (Lakota) at a national NCAI conference in 1966. The public
first became aware of the term in a 1967 news broadcast that featured Clyde
Warrior promising that the NIYC would lead an uprising that “would make
Kenya’s Mau Mau look like a Sunday school picnic” (Winfrey 1986, 238). Indian
militancy borrowed heavily from African-American models. Sit-ins provided a
model for the fish-ins, “red power” responded to the earlier term “black power,”
and “red Muslims” was a term used by some Indian militants like Gerald Wilkinson (Cherokee/Catawba), a leader in the NIYC (Day 1971, 526); Nagel 1997,
130). One of the first actions the students joined was the Fish-in Movement
in Washington State in 1964. A movement of open resistance had begun that
would support new tribal achievements.
In 1968, two more youth-led power groups emerged, one on the West Coast
and one in the Midwest. Lehman Brightman (Lakota), Director of the American
Indian Studies at the University of California campus, formed the Bay Areabased United Native Americans, whose members played a role in the occupation of Alcatraz (Johnson, Nagel, and Champagne 1997, 15; Olson 1984, 161).
Though they envisioned themselves as a national organization, most of their
support was in the Bay Area (Baylor 1994, 88; Johnson 1996, 88). They are credited with publishing the first inter-tribal militant newspaper, Warpath, in 1968
(Johnson 1996, 33) and issued a call for war on the BIA (Sinclair 1996, 49).
A group of young community members in urban Minneapolis formed the
American Indian Movement (AIM), also in 1968. Modeled after the Black
Panthers, they initially responded to the issue of urban police harassment and
found themselves targeted by the FBI. By the late 1960s, Indians in Minneapolis
formed a third of the state’s Indian population, more than any single reservation in the state. Most of the Indians in Minneapolis were Anishinabe (Olson
1984, 167). While the membership base of the NIYC was comprised primarily
of students, AIM initially drew a relocated urban underclass to their movement
(Crow Dog 1990, 76).
Power groups led a number of effective symbolic actions that challenged and
educated society. Power groups, led by youth, often from urban backgrounds,
organized separately from whites and focused on the need to reeducate members in traditional tribal ways. Spiritual practices, personal appearance, and
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hair length, for example, indicated independence from white values. Some
divisions occurred as charges of being “uncle tomahawks” (a sell-out, similar
to the African-American term of “Uncle Tom” in meaning), or “apples” (red
on the outside, white on the inside) were applied to American Indians in the
BIA, tribal bureaucrats, educated professionals, and to those with light skin,
of lesser blood quantum, or who were otherwise deemed not “Indian enough”
(Price 1998, 89). FBI infiltrators encouraged these divisions.
The first red power action that garnered national and international attention was the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island. Other occupations followed
this one, including one at Fort Lewis, Washington, the 1972 occupation of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington D. C., and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. Post-Alcatraz inter tribal groups aimed their protest at
national sites and symbols (Nagel 1997, 158).
The Women of Alcatraz
The name of the island is Alcatraz . . .
it changed my life forever.
—Wilma Mankiller, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People
The occupation of Alcatraz Island galvanized Indian pride and consciousness,
and heralded a new era in American Indian activism. This landmark occupation began in November 1969 and ended nineteen months later, in June 1971.
There had been an earlier four-hour symbolic takeover of Alcatraz in March
1964, organized by Belva Cottier (Lakota), which garnered regional media attention (Daly 1994, 114; Johnson 1996, 17). The group of forty, from the Bay Area
Council of American Indians, drove claim stakes into the ground (a broom
handle was used for one) symbolizing the discovery sticks Lewis and Clark had
used. The group offered the government forty-seven cents an acre for a total of
$9.40 for the island. The occupying party of forty included twenty-six-year-old
Russell Means (Oglala Lakota) and his father (Eagle 1992, 15; Means 1995,
106). Belva Cottier also pressed a claim to the island through the courts under
the Fort Laramie Treaty that gave Indians the right to claim abandoned federal
property, but was unsuccessful in court (Johnson 1997, 240). The action, led by
Belva Cottier, remained a topic of conversation among urban Bay Area Indians
long afterward.
A number of prominent leaders, including Wilma Mankiller and Russell
Means, had grown up in California, after their families, along with others
from tribes throughout the United States, moved there as part of the federal
government’s Relocation Program. In 1958, four out of the eight original
Relocation Centers were in California: at San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose,
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and Los Angeles (Eagle 1992, 21). Consequently, California was a hotbed for
Indian activism (Johnson 1997, 24). As many Lakota resided in California as
on reservations in South Dakota (Deloria 1971, 501). The Indian population
in California was 82 percent urban in contrast to states such as Arizona, New
Mexico, Alaska, and North Carolina, where Indians were more than 70 percent
rural (Olson 1984, 164). Urban residents at this time had more education and
lower rates of unemployment: 11 percent in urban areas, compared to 40 percent and higher in rural reservation settings (Olson 1984, 164). Being an urban
Indian had become an important identity. Moreover, the Indian population had
also become a younger group overall (Baylor 1994, 65; Johnson 1996, 51). An
unintended consequence of this concentration of young Indians in urban areas
was an increase in American Indian militancy. Urban militancy was matched
by a resurgence of nationalism on reservations.
The 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, which gained national and international
media coverage, was led by students from California campuses and supported
by community members of the San Francisco Indian Center. Indian Centers in
urban areas were another unanticipated consequence of the government’s urban
Relocation Program. In urban settings, Indian Centers and bars maintained
social contact for participants. Just weeks before students moved to occupy
Alcatraz, the San Francisco Indian Center had burned down and members
discussed the possibility of building a new center on Alcatraz (Eagle 1992, 39;
Johnson 1997, 26; Ziegelman 1985, 47).
An initial landing on Alcatraz occurred on 9 November 1969 and was followed by a larger landing on 20 November by ninety students who began the
hard work of building an infrastructure to support a long-term occupation (Eagle
1992, 71). The prison on the island had been shut down several years earlier.
Conditions on the island were desolate: no electricity, no running water. The
occupiers pointed out that similar conditions could be found on many reservations (Eagle 1992, xi; Ziegelman 1985, 56). All supplies had to be carried across
the bay through Coast Guard blockades (Eagle 1992, 75). The work of women
was essential in the daily running of the island, including running the community kitchen, school, and health center. Yet male figures such as Richard Oakes
(Mohawk), head of San Francisco State Native American Student group, and
bartender and twenty-three-year-old John Trudell (Santee Lakota), who ran the
radio broadcast from Alcatraz, received more media attention at the time and
remain better known to this day.
An average of approximately 100 occupiers remained on the island on a
continuous basis, but thousands of Indians from across the country visited
Alcatraz, a symbol of renewed cultural pride and more militant stances regarding self-determination. More than 56,000 Indians took part in the occupation
(Winton 1999, 8). The occupiers adopted the name Indians of All Tribes,
characterizing their backgrounds.
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Prominent leaders among the student occupiers included Richard Oakes and
LaNada Boyer/Means (Shoshone Bannock), the head of the Native American
Student Organization at the University of California, Berkeley campus (Nagel
1997, 88). Richard Oakes occupied the island for a few short months in the
beginning, but LaNada Boyer/Means, at age twenty-two, was in the initial
landing party and occupied the island from beginning to end (Eagle 1992, 127;
Johnson 1997, 3). In January of 1968, she had been the first Indian student
admitted to the University of California, Berkeley (Johnson 1997, 107). She
later chaired the Native American Student Organization that led the occupation. She wrote a $300,000 grant proposal that sought to turn Alcatraz into
a cultural education center (Winton 1999, 8). Also present were Madonna
Gilbert/Thunderhawk (Cheyenne River Lakota) and John Trudell, who would
later become leaders in AIM.
The protesters used humor and symbolism to deliver political messages
through a document proclaiming their intent to establish a Bureau of Caucasian
Affairs ridiculing the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whose policies were routinely
criticized by some Indian leaders (Eagle 1992, 42). Occupiers also shot toy bow
and arrows at Coast Guard boats (Johnson 1997, 29). Among the original
student group of seventy-eight occupiers were two informers, a condition that
plagued Indian groups (Daly 1994, 122). The student occupiers of Alcatraz were
not armed, as opposed to those later occupiers at Wounded Knee. The Alcatraz
occupation also occurred within the liberal environment of the Bay Area, in
sharp contrast to the conservative, rural, South Dakota environment the later
Wounded Knee occupation faced.
Students were the original occupants of the island, but community members
on the mainland such as Adam Nordwell/Fortunate Eagle (Anishinabe) and
Grace Thorpe (Sac Fox), daughter of Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, provided the
support that made the occupation possible. Grace Thorpe procured a generator,
water barge, and ambulance service, as well as coordinated publicity, including
visits by Hollywood stars such as Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn,
and Candice Bergen. She also handled public relations on Alcatraz and at the
later Fort Lawton occupation. She helped to secure property for the site of
Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl (DQ) University, the first university of American
Indian and Chicano students, near Davis, California (Johnson 1996, 232). Her
activism began with Alcatraz; as she recalls, “Alcatraz made me put my furniture
into storage and spend my life savings” (Johnson 1997, 30). Grace Thorpe went
on to work as a lobbyist with NCAI and attempted to get factories located on
reservations so people would be able to have jobs without leaving their lands.
She returned to her reservation in 1980 and served as a tribal judge and health
commissioner (Malinowski 1995, 433). Thorpe remained an activist throughout
her life. In her sixties, with only her social security checks, she started a fight
against what she called “radioactive racism” in her own tribal government,
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which was considering storing nuclear waste (Neil 1996, 74). In 1993 she
founded the National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans.
Another community member, fifty-year-old nurse Stella Leach (Colville),
ran the health clinic and was a leader in the occupation toward the end (Eagle
1992, 89, Johnson 1996, 124). Dr. Dorothy Lone Wolf Miller (Blackfoot), the
Director of Scientific Analysis Corporation, used her office as the headquarters for Indians of All Tribes and procured an education grant to start Rock
School on the island and to set up the island health clinic. She also printed the
newsletter of the occupation (Eagle 1992, 78). Numerous community members,
such as twenty-three year old Wilma Mankiller, had volunteered support for
the occupiers from the mainland and visited the island. Wilma credits Alcatraz
with being the catalyst for her initial political awareness, stating, “It gave me the
sense that anything was possible. Who I am and how I governed was influenced
by Alcatraz” (Winton 1999, 10).
The government offered the occupiers a cultural center at Fort Mason next
to Fisherman’s Wharf, but the protesters wanted title to the island itself (Eagle
1992, 123). Stella Leach warned the government that they would create another
Wounded Knee Massacre if they tried to remove the protesters (Price 1998, 99).
Some criticized the atmosphere on the island during the last few months as
being a combination of constant powwows and street fighting. It has been argued
that violence and chaos increased as the occupation changed from mostly students to a larger base of people from the streets (Price 1998, 97). It is difficult
to know how many infiltrators might also have contributed to dissension.
The federal government was eventually able to outwait and outmaneuver
the Alcatraz occupiers and finally removed them from the island on 11 June
1971, but the landmark protest had left its impact (Eagle 1992, 114). Many
more occupations were to follow in areas across the country for the next few
years, including a three month occupation in March 1970 at Fort Lawton in
Washington state that was successful in procuring land for the Daybreak Star
Cultural Center; and occupation near Davis, California, that was successful
in establishing DQ University in 1971; an occupation of Ellis Island; a 1970
Thanksgiving occupation of the Mayflower by AIM; and numerous occupations
of BIA offices, including the headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Eagle 1992,
147; Johnson 1996, 224). These later occupations were all for short periods of
days or weeks (Johnson 1997, 32).
Alcatraz helped to shape public opinion and influence public policy. A top
aide to President Nixon later cited at least nine major policy shifts that resulted
from the occupation of Alcatraz, including passage of the Indian Self Determination and Education Act, revision of the Johnson O’Malley Act to improve
Indian education, and passage of the Indian Financing Act and an Indian
Health Act, and the return of Mount Adams to the Yakima in Washington
State as well as the return of 48,000 acres of the Sacred Blue Lake lands to
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Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. Nixon had also quietly signed papers ending the
Termination policy during the occupation (Eagle 1992, 148; Winton 1999, 9).
Perhaps most importantly, Alcatraz raised political consciousness, as noted by
John Trudell: “Alcatraz made it easier for us to remember who we are” (Winton
1999, 9). Before Alcatraz, Indian activism had been more tribal and regional,
with a focus on specific treaty issues. Alcatraz remains the longest occupation of
a federal site by Indians to this day. Alcatraz heralded an inter tribal militancy
that awakened the American public to the status of American Indians. Crosscountry marches by Indian groups continue to use Alcatraz as their starting
point, as it was the beginning of a new movement and of a newfound pride and
racial consciousness.
Women Led the Fish-In Movement
Fish-in protests began as a response to Washington state policy that tried to use
state laws to restrict Indian fishing rights guaranteed by federal treaties. The
1854 Medicine Creek Treaty guaranteed Northwest Indian tribes unrestricted
use of natural resources, an important right since fishing traditionally formed
the basis of diets, culture, and spirituality (Ziegelman 1985, 30). With high poverty rates, the ability to fish continued to be a significant contributor to family
survival. The fish-ins protested the discrepancy between treaty rights, which
guaranteed fishing on and off reservations and official state policy that supported
the routine arrest of Indians when they fished off the reservation (Ziegelman
1985, 24). In 1974, after a decade of protest, the United States v. Washington
State, more popularly known as the Boldt decision (after Judge Hugh Boldt),
recognized the treaty rights of tribes regarding fishing. This landmark decision
allocated half the salmon harvest to the tribes.
The fish-ins started out as nonviolent civil disobedience, but after violence
from state and city law enforcement, game wardens and white vigilantes,
including the use of tear gas, clubs, beatings, and shootings, Indians responded
in self-defense. In most cases, it was women who carried the arms during the
fish-ins. Regional newspapers carried photos of older women with rifles, quoting them as saying, “No one is going to touch my son or I’m going to shoot
them” (Jaimes 1992, 312). Coastal tribes had a strong sense of sovereignty and
would routinely escort IRS staff off their reservations at gunpoint. In the fall of
1970, at the Puyallup fish-in camp, spokesperson Ramona Bennett was quoted
as saying, “We are armed and prepared to defend our rights with our lives. If
anyone lays a hand on that net, they are going to get shot . . . we’re serious.
There are no blanks in our guns” (Ziegelman 1985, 27). The armed women in
this protest movement faced violence from state officials and white vigilantes;
armed men at the later occupation of Wounded Knee were met by with massive
federal paramilitary forces.
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There were shoot-outs and firebombing at fish-ins, though most injuries were
born by the protesters (Ziegelman 1985, 27). Both Hank Adams (Anishinabe)
from NIYC, and Tribal Chair Ramona Bennett, spokesperson for the Puyallup
fish-ins, were shot by white vigilantes, Ramona while seven months pregnant
(Johnson 1997, 18). Statements from public officials such as Governor Dan
Evans who declared that Indian treaties were worthless, bolstered the violence
of state officials and vigilantes. State attorneys even challenged the tribal status
of the small tribes (Akwesasne 1974, 26). The BIA did not defend Indian fishing
rights, even though it is supposedly obligated to assist tribes in claims against
the state (Ziegelman 1985, 28). Organizers had pursued civil protest because it
seemed more effective than meetings with bureaucrats in overturning policy
(Price 1998, 90).
Women were key public figures in the fish-in movement, not an unusual
role for them in Northwest Coastal tribes. Women comprised the majority of
protesters and half of those arrested. One of the first protests occurred in 1961:
of twenty-seven protesters, only eight were men. When men were arrested,
women ran the fishing boats (Katz 1995, 279). Janet McCloud (Tulalip) was
one of the key leaders in the fish-in movement. Her name is as important
in history as that of Rosa Parks. One event that spurred McCloud’s activism
occurred in 1961, when state game wardens broke into her home searching for
deer meat. Another motivating factor, according to McCloud, was the need to
keep busy in order to deal with overwhelming grief after her sister died in 1961.
Women leaders initially met resistance from male leaders of large tribes such
as the Yakama. When she turned to them for support, McCloud was made fun
of because she was a woman and a half-blood. As McCloud summarized, “Now
you hear them talk and they act macho, they act belligerent, they act rough, but
when it comes right down to the bottom line, they couldn’t fight their way out
of a paper bag. The only people I’ve ever seen them fight are Indian women and
children. And yet they’re controlling everything now. Establishment.” McCloud
acknowledges that one of her most consistent sources of support was female
elders (Payne 1994, 6).
In 1964 Janet McCloud and Ramona Bennett founded the Survival of American Indians Association to raise bail funds and moved their regional movement
to some national prominence, as Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando and Dick
Gregory lent their support, going so far as to be arrested themselves at fish-ins
(Johnson 1997, 15; Price 1998, 90). By 1964 the movement was also supported by
college students including Hank Adams and other staff members of the NIYC.
The fish-ins unified the small fishing tribes in the state: the Makah,
Nisqually, Puyallup, and Muckelshoot, among others (Ziegleman 1985, 23).
According to Vine Deloria, the state avoided confrontations with the larger
tribes, but concentrated on smaller ones that had fewer resources with which
to defend themselves (Akwesasne 1974, 26).
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Janet McCloud went on to found the Northwest Indian Women’s Circle,
which focused on issues such as sterilization abuse and problems with the foster
care placement and adoption of Indian children (Payne 1994, 7). McCloud was
a founding member of WARN, Women of All Red nations, and more recently,
the Indigenous Women’s Network, a coalition that covers tribes from Chile
to Canada. At a major AIM conference following Wounded Knee, McCloud
proposed that one of the main issues AIM should work on was the need for
Indian men to lead the fight against domestic violence in their communities.
Russell Means says that he still regrets that they didn’t act on her suggestion
(Means 1995, 432).
Along with McCloud, Ramona Bennett, Chair of the Puyallup Tribe for
seven years from 1971 to 1978, played a pivotal role in this movement. At a
time of few female tribal chairs, Ramona faced attempts to exclude her from
the National Tribal Chairmen’s Conferences. At her first conference for this
group, she had to fight her way into the room. On her way out of the meeting,
she saw Ada Deer of the Menominee sitting outside the door where she had
been told to wait with the wives of tribal chairmen (Katz 1995, 157). Ramona
completed a Bachelor’s degree from Evergreen University and a Master’s in
Education from the University of Puget Sound (Malinowski 1995, 32). To get
a sense of the atmosphere of the times, Ramona remembers an incident where
she requested Kotex pads to use for flesh wounds from supporters in Seattle The
people bringing the supplies brought a case of tampons instead. When Ramona
pointed out the error, they made the case that the tampons could be used for
Molotov cocktails . . . and so they were kept (Katz 1995, 155).
The Women of Wounded Knee
In July 1968, AIM was co-founded by Mary Jane Wilson (Anishinabe) Clyde
Bellecourt (Anishinabe) and Dennis Banks (Anishinabe) in Minneapolis
(Baylor 1994, 2). The group initially planned to use the name Concerned
Indian Americans, but then rejected it since the acronym would have been
CIA. Roberta Downwind suggested the name AIM since “you say you aim to
do this and that” (Baylor 1994, 74; Sinclair 1996, 35). Pat Ballinger, known as
the mother of AIM, chaired the St. Paul chapter (Churchill 1990, 114; Weyler
1992, 36). AIM was modeled after the Black Panthers (Johnson 1997, 243).
Members wore red jackets to patrol the Twin Cities community monitoring
police harassment. AIM rhetoric was often couched in spiritual terms. Members
of AIM saw it foremost as a spiritual movement (Bellecourt 1976, 66; Sinclair
1996, 69). By 1971, it had become a national organization with seventy-five
chapters, but was in decline by 1979 (Baylor 1994, 2). The official symbol of
AIM was an American flag flown upside down (Matthiessen 1983, 36). They
staged media events that carried powerful symbolic messages, such as the 1970
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takeover of the Mayflower on Thanksgiving, where they buried Plymouth Rock
under several inches of sand and received their first national media coverage
(Crow Dog 1990, 189; Johnson 1996, 230). In June 1971, they threatened to
hold the Statue of Liberty hostage (Johnson 1996, 232). The media responded
to the image of male warriors (Sinclair 1996, 51). Some viewed the long hair,
feathers, and militant rhetoric as being more exciting to the white media than
to reservation populations (Matthiessen 1983, 39).
In 1972, AIM was one of eight groups that organized the Trail of Broken Treaties’ cross-country march (Akwesasne Notes 1974, 2). The march was patterned
after the 1963 March on Washington of the African-American Civil Rights
Movement (Ziegelman 1985, 64). Marchers planned to arrive in Washington,
D.C. during the final weeks of the presidential campaign and present their
grievances to both candidates (Ziegelman 1985, 64). Three groups—Alcatraz,
Pacific Northwest, and Oklahoma—were led by spiritual leaders with stops
at historical sites such as Sand Creek and Wounded Knee (Akwesasne Notes
1974, 3). Tongue-in-cheek, AIM proclaimed that the plan was to retake the
country from West to East like a wagon train in reverse (Weyler 1992, 42). AIM’s
national news editor Anita Collins (Paiute Shoshone) served as secretary of
the events, and Lavonna Weller (Oklahoma Caddo), first woman president of
NIYC, served as treasurer (Akwesasne Notes 1974, 2).
When the group reached the Capitol, AIM occupied the BIA office. An
occupation had not been originally planned, but when the group of 700–1,000
marchers arrived at BIA headquarters in November 1972, they found that
anticipated accommodations had not been made (Ziegelman 1985, 73). Their
numbers were not large, compared with recent anti-war demonstrations in the
Capitol of a quarter million. If the protest had remained peaceful, it might have
received little media attention and had little impact. But when riot police tried
to remove protesters from the building, police were pushed into the streets
and the doors blocked (Price 1998, 115–16). A human barricade of multiracial
supporters kept police at bay (Weyler 1992, 51). On the third day, leaders were
given $66,000 in travel money to leave town (Ziegelman 1985, 74). Madonna
Gilbert/Thunderhawk and Russell Means collected documents from BIA files
(Means 1995, 235). They left this occupation with U-Hauls full of 1.5 tons
of documents that would reveal the widespread practice of sterilization abuse
and other abuses (Price 1998, 119). AIM leaders were later criticized because
the marchers got $25–$100 each while each leader was accused of receiving
$5,000–$10,000 of the total money (Ziegelman 1985, 92).
AIM served as a portable response unit in the Midwest. When injustices
were ignored, community members sometimes called on AIM to raise awareness. Murders and sexual assaults of Indians in border towns, when committed
by whites, had seldom been prosecuted (Ziegelman 1985, 103). Some family
members, tired of government and tribal cold shoulders, called on AIM. In
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February 1972, AIM responded to the murder of Raymond Yellow Thunder
(Lakota) in Gordon, Nebraska (Price 1998,107). His family had been unable to
get tribal attorneys or the BIA to investigate his death, so one of his nephews
contacted the organization (Mattiessen 1983, 59). AIM demanded another
autopsy, which found that the cause of death was not exposure but a brain
hemorrhage from being beaten to death. A thousand AIM members arrived
in Gordon for a two-day protest at City Hall, accompanied by a call to boycott
stores and businesses (Olson 1984,170). After these activities, officials began
to investigate the death. After Gordon, AIM activists remained in rural South
Dakota (Price 1998, 109).
They were called into a similar situation by Sarah Bad Heart Bull (Lakota)
when her son Wesley was knifed to death by a white who was released with no
charges (Sinclair 1996, 36). One hundred AIM members showed up in en masse
at the courthouse in Custer, South Dakota (Means 1995, 243). As Bad Heart
Bull attempted to get past the crowd and into the courthouse, police officers
pushed her down the steps, using a nightstick on her throat (Means 1995, 244).
Seeing an elder mistreated in this manner incited a riot. The police officers
threw tear gas grenades; AIM set fire to the courthouse and the Chamber of
Commerce. Dennis Banks and Russell Means were brought up on riot charges,
though they were inside the courthouse when the incident occurred (Matthiessen 1983, 62). Sarah Bad Heart Bull got a three-to-five-year sentence for rioting
and served five months. Her son’s murderer, in ironic contrast, received a mere
two months’ probation and served no time (Crow Dog 1990, 121). Incidents
such as these gave AIM a high public profile.
Russell Means characterized South Dakota, at this time, as being “the Mississippi of the North” (Johnson 1997, 248). Pine Ridge reservation in South
Dakota was run by a tribal Chair, Dick Wilson, whom many viewed as corrupt,
and attempts were made to impeach him (Johnson 1997, 35). Pine Ridge had a
murder rate 700 times that of Detroit (Baylor 1994, 191). Dick Wilson’s private
army, called “goons,” created an atmosphere where arson, beating, and murder
were common (Olson 1984, 171). Half of the BIA police moonlighted as goons
(Johnson 1997, 254). Dick Wilson had banned all AIM activities on the reservation and declared on open war against supporters (Matthiessen 1983, 60).
The most radical support to remove Dick Wilson came from female elders such
as Gladys Bissonette and Ellen Moves Camp. As Gladys Bissonette recalled,
“When we marched there were nothing but us women” (Weyler 1992, 73). They
publicly picketed against Wilson in an atmosphere of an internal civil war
(Means 1995, 251). Older women from Pine Ridge called AIM to their reservation to discuss the situation, and a group led by Dennis Banks and Russell Means
arrived in February 1973 (Johnson 1997, 250). Mostly older women, many who
had lost children or grandchildren during Wilson’s regime, packed the meeting
in Calico. Mary Crow Dog/Brave Bird and Russell Means remember that the
Donna Hightower Langston
127
Wounded Knee Occupation was the idea of older women (Crow Dog 1990,
113, 124; Means 1995, 265). Gladys Bisonette argued, “Let’s make our stand at
Wounded Knee, because that place has meaning for us, because so many of our
people were massacred there” (Brave Bird 1994, 196).
The occupiers might have intended that Wounded Knee serve as political
theater, but official response was massive. Federal forces were used without the
required presidential proclamation and executive order. Phantom jets made daily
surveillance passes overhead (Weyler 1992, 81). One occupier who was also a
Vietnam Vet noted that they took more bullets in seventy-one days at Wounded
Knee than he had seen in two years in Vietnam (Weyler 1992, 83). Public
opinion was on the side of the Indians. A 1973 Harris Poll revealed that 98
percent of the public had heard of Wounded Knee, and 51 percent sympathized
with the Indians (Mattiessen 1983, 69; Price 1998, 125). During the ten-week
siege, of the 350 occupiers, fewer than 100 were men (Price 1998, 122). Women
had spearheaded the dissent at Pine Ridge and performed all tasks, including
carrying weapons (Sayer 1997, 54). One photo of Anna Mae Aquash (Mimac)
shows her digging a bunker with a golf club. Women also ran the medical clinic
(Brave Bird 1994, 179). Most of the primary negotiators with the government
were female elders, including Bisonette and Moves Camp.
Five hundred and sixty-five were arrested after Wounded Knee, nearly every
AIM member, and 185 federal indictments were issued (Crow Dog 1990, 243).
More male leaders faced serious charges, as women in court might not pass for
dangerous terrorists, especially older women (Matthiessen 1983, 84). A reign of
terror followed on the reservation with Dick Wilson’s goons serving as a death
squad. Within the next two years, 250 mostly traditionalists were killed on the
reservation, and sixty-nine AIM supporters, a third of them women (Jaimes
1992, 328). Gladys Bisonette lost her son, Pedro Bissonette, the president of the
Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization, when BIA police killed him in October
1973. Her daughter, Jeanette Bisonette, was shot dead on the way home from
Pedro’s funeral (Matthiessen 1983, 132; Olson 1984, 172). No indictments ever
occurred against the goons.
Eighty-five women were charged after Wounded Knee. Two of the several
major trials after Wounded Knee were of women leaders, Madonna Gilbert/
Thunderhawk (Lakota) and Lorilei Decora/Means (Ho Chunk). Madonna Gilbert, a cousin of Russell Means and thirty-three-year-old mother of three at the
time of Wounded Knee, was from the Cheyenne reservation in South Dakota
(Brave Bird 1994, 200). She had spent nine months at the Alcatraz occupation
in 1970 to 1971 and worked as a teacher in survival schools, another project of
Red Power groups. After Wounded Knee she co-founded WARN with Janet
McCloud and others. Lorilei Decora/Means was the state director of Iowa AIM
at age nineteen (Brave Bird 1994, 200). She joined AIM at age sixteen, and
joined McCloud and Gilbert in the formation of WARN. Neither of the women
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were present during their trials, they were too busy organizing on reservations
(Sayer 1997, 128). They received scant media coverage or organizational support compared to the amount the men received. Funds were sought from white
feminists, but they were offered with strings attached; namely, that the Indian
women were to make Indian men more accountable regarding sexism (Crow Dog
1990, 243). Legal battles bankrupted the movement. AIM excelled at bringing
media attention to problems, but the leadership was rarely united. Some of this
division might have been enhanced by the constant presence of FBI agents.
There had been six FBI agents at Wounded Knee and several at the Washington
D. C. BIA occupation and other events (Baylor 1994, 202).
Conclusion
Sexism of Indian Men
The issue of sexism was raised at Wounded Knee amid criticism of male dominance and opportunism. One response was the founding of WARN shortly
afterwards in 1974. While the media remained fascinated with the stereotype of
male warriors, many of the male leaders, such as Dennis Banks, acknowledged
that women were the real warriors (Sayer 1997, 99). John Trudell has reflected on
the times, saying, “We got lost in our manhood” (Sayer 1997, 224). Mary Crow
Dog/Brave Bird said that women were honored for having children and doing
good beading (Sayer 1997, 99). But she also recalls, “It is to AIM’s everlasting
credit that it tried to change men’s attitudes toward women. In the movement
we were all equal” (Crow Dog 1990, 206). Moreover, Indian women had an
interesting way of calling men on sexism that was not open to white women.
They argued that acting sexist was a sign of being assimilated. Acting sexist
was a way of exhibiting ignorance of Indian traditions.
Racism of White Women
Indian women also had run-ins with white women. A great deal of paternalism, and very little awareness of Indian women’s priorities, were exhibited by
most white women. Communication problems were common, as white women
assumed superiority in their way of thinking and doing things. As Bea Medicine
(Lakota) has noted, “Indian women do not need liberation, they have always
been liberated within their tribal structure” (Daly 1994, 238). White women
expected that Indian women with a gender consciousness would automatically
lend their support to issues which white women prioritized, but they seldom
expressed an interest in a reciprocal relationship. As Laura Waterman Wittstock
(Seneca) noted, “Tribalism, not feminism, is the correct route: (Medicine 1978,
334). Few white feminists were able to grasp the nationalist content of Indian
women’s activism.
Donna Hightower Langston
129
Indian Women’s Groups
A number of Indian women’s groups formed in the early 1970s. A civil rights
oriented group formed in 1977 out of the International Women’s Year conference
and was funded by the Women’s Educational Equity Program (Medicine 1978,
343). Ohoyo, the Choctaw word for women, lasted just a couple of years, but
produced a number of conferences for professional women (Ohoyo 1981, 5). A
split between the D.C. staff, more closely aligned with white feminist interests,
and grassroots members, more identified with nationalist concerns, became
evident and the group disbanded in 1985.
WARN, on the other hand, had a more radical focus. Made up of three
hundred women from thirty nations at their founding conference, WARN
shared a similar philosophy with AIM (Emery 1981, 8). Many of its efforts
focused on struggles over energy resources and sterilization abuse uncovered
in BIA confiscated documents. Some felt that WARN attracted urban young
college-educated women more than others (Power 1986, 151). The Northwest
Indian Women’s Circle was founded in 1981 by Janet McCloud and worked on
issues connected to Indian women and children.
Issues
Indian women’s groups raised different issues than their counterparts in white
women’s groups. Sterilization abuse, as mentioned previously, was uncovered
when AIM took BIA documents during their 1972 occupation. From these files,
they learned that forty-two percent of Indian women had been sterilized, the
majority without their consent (Shoemaker 1995, 326). In 1980, sterilization
abuse was the theme of the Longest Walk across America (Tomkin 1981, 17).
Another issue for Indian women’s groups was that of adoption. In earlier times,
children had been taken away from Indian families at young ages and shipped
to boarding schools at great distances. Today, Indian children are placed in
foster care and adoption at high rates (Emery 1981, 191). Sometimes the reasons
children are removed from homes are based in cultural differences and differing
family models that value extended families among Indians (Brave Bird 1994,
190). Indian women’s groups have also raised awareness of their high infant
mortality rates, and the fact that Indians have the highest school dropout rate
of any group in the United States. Indian women’s groups also organized around
land and resource struggles.
Differences
It could be argued that the last thousand years of European history have been
more uniformly patriarchal than most of Indian history (Wilmer 1998, 8).
Many nations are matrilineal and have female gods and messiahs. Women
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currently comprise 25 percent of the top-level governmental leadership positions in Indian nations, a figure not yet reached in the United States or many
other countries.
While some white feminists view motherhood with suspicion and claim that
it is a key site of women’s oppression, many Indian women find the role empowering. The high status of motherhood results in less stigma for unmarried Indian
mothers than it does for women in dominant society, and some Indian women
have not been as receptive to family planning services (Green 1980, 266). Being
a mother or grandmother increases one’s status in Indian country. White women
are also more likely to view aging as something that decreases women’s status.
Aging may not hold the negative connotation to the same degree in traditional
Indian communities where it is a sign of power and status, something women
might look forward to (Green 1980, 263; La Fromboise 1990, 460).
Indian women are more likely to organize around issues that impact children as well as women; they also organize around issues regarding tribal rights.
Inter-generational organizing among women is also more likely to occur than
in white women’s groups. Many female elders find that their status as elders
enhances their political participation and contributions to future generations.
Due to lower life expectancies, Indian women may be perceived as elders at
younger ages than the dominant population. The women who participated in
political events of the 1960s and 1970s are now our revered elders. Elders do not
last forever in any community. It is important that their contributions receive
recognition in their lifetime and in generations to follow.
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